I wanted to share this place with him because I was done being afraid to get close to people. I didn’t want to hide anymore. “We can go right inside the gate. Don’t touch anything. Don’t even brush up against anything, okay?”

“I swear I won’t,” he said, craning his neck to look past the moon gate.

I moved toward the circular opening in the dividing wall. I led him through, stopping just inside. The locked door in the back was shrouded by ivy once again. No one would have known it was there unless they were looking for it.

“Wow,” said Karter. He cleared his throat.

“You good?” I asked, as the familiar cool sensation trickled down my throat.

His gaze suddenly darted to the top of the wall. A vine as big around as a telephone pole slung itself down, thudding as it hit the ground. It moved along the ground like a snake, baring its thorns like fangs.

Karter scrambled back. He coughed over and over again and his eyes watered profusely. I’d made a mistake. He shouldn’t have been here at all.

“Do me a favor and don’t move,” I said, my heart racing. The plants were reacting to me. A frenzied sort of energy permeated the air as tangles of vines and Devil’s Pet began to unfurl from the tops of the walls. I lunged in front of Karter as the snakelike vine reached for him. “Don’t!” I shouted.

“It listens to you?” Karter asked, his eyes wild, his breath pumping out of him.

I didn’t know for sure that it would, but I didn’t know what else to do. I put my hands up in front of me. “Stop!”

The vine coiled back on itself and went still.

Karter looked around frantically. “Can we go?”

We left the Poison Garden, and as we did, the vine recoiled and retook its position at the top of the wall. Karter had backed all the way up and was standing in the shade of the big tree. His eyes were bloodshot, his face shiny with sweat. He clawed at his neck. “Am I gonna die?”

“No,” I said.

“You’re good? Why do I feel like I’m dying?”

He sat down, gulping in the fresh air between fits of coughing. After a few minutes, his breathing slowed, and his eyes stopped watering. He’d be okay.

“You can’t go back in there. I’m sorry. I thought if you didn’t touch anything you’d be okay.” It was too much of a risk and I felt terrible.

“It doesn’t affect you at all?”